Olymics: Stephanie Rice took Thorpie's advice

Melbourne, Mar 16: Swimming sensation Stephanie Rice has revealed that she turned to Ian Thorpe for advice on how to deal with her rapid rise to stardom.

Rice won millions of hearts following her triumph at last year's Beijing Games but such was the scrutiny on the young Queenslander that every aspect of her life post-Olympics became news from partying to constant speculation about boyfriends.

Rice admitted that that she sought out advice from Beijing teammates Grant Hackett and Libby Trickett but found that five-time Olympic champion Thorpe particularly connected with her.

"I think people deal with it in different ways and Ian was really great because I think I could sort of relate my stories better to him and I think they hit him more emotionally rather than anything else," the Age quoted her, as saying.

"So it was good to see how he handled it emotionally and how he got through all the scrutiny and that really helped me out," she said.

Rice said that Thorpe advised her to not to pay too much attention to the media.

"He was just telling me that it is important to know who you are as a person and not to get wound up and don't read the media and that because it does sort of ... it is hard to read bad stuff about you and (to) let it go. You always want to fire back and say something," she said.